Should doping be allowed in sport?

Doping would remove many financial barriers to elite level sport

Question: Should doping be allowed in sport?
Position1 of 3›: Yes, doping should be allowed
Argument1 of 7›: Doping would remove many financial barriers to elite level sport

There are currently many financial barriers preventing competitors with fewer resources from reaching the elite level. Allowing doping would remove many of these financial barriers and make professional sport more accessible to everyone.

The argument

In the example provided, the two wealthy teams had an advantage afforded by their wealth. If doping were permitted, the third team could have had its athletes take Epogen, which could be procured for around $122 a month per athlete. It would have had a similar effect to training at altitude and using a hypoxic air machine. However, it is a banned substance. On a smaller scale, performance-enhancing drugs can be used to offset the competitive advantages afforded by wealthy backgrounds and access to increased funding, thereby bringing the realm of professional sport within reach to a wider set of the population and promoting success based on merit as opposed to access to resources.

Context

Consider three nations Olympic teams that are preparing their aerobic athletes for the upcoming Olympic games. Two have access to a large pot of funding while the third operates on a limited budget. The first team takes its athletes to altitude, at a significant expense, to prepare for the games. Training at altitude forces the release more EPO and growing more blood red cells, which improves performance. The second team also has a large budget. Instead of taking their athletes to altitude, they buy a $7,000 hypoxic air machine and tent. This allows their athletes to enjoy the same effects of training at altitude. The third team can afford none of these methods. Their team has to rely on training and nutrition alone.

Premises

[P1]Wealthy athletes and teams gain competitive advantages through expensive training resources like altitude camps and hypoxic air machines that poorer competitors cannot afford. [P2] Performance-enhancing drugs such as Epogen can replicate these advantages at a fraction of the cost, making them accessible to less-funded athletes. [P3] Allowing doping would therefore level the playing field and let success depend on merit rather than access to resources. [C] Therefore, doping should be allowed in sport because it removes financial barriers to elite competition.

Counter-arguments

Permitting doping would not remove the financial barriers to entering professional sport, it would just move them. Teams would merely divert spending from training methods to drugs. The increased demand for performance enhancing drugs would prompt pharmaceutical companies to charge a premium for their product, and the highest quality drugs would only be accessible to those with deep enough pockets. Therefore, allowing doping would keep the same financial barriers to professional sport intact, but merely shift them from training methods to drug acquisition.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise is sound but incomplete: wealth advantages in elite sport extend to coaching, facilities, medical support, nutrition and time free from other work, for none of which a drug substitutes. [Rejecting P2] The cost comparison holds only under prohibition — as the counter argues, permitting doping would move spending to drugs rather than remove it, and the best-resourced teams would buy the most effective compounds along with the physicians to administer them. [Rejecting P3] The levelling claim is contradicted by the medical dimension the argument omits: unsupervised use falls hardest on athletes who cannot afford monitoring, so the poorer competitor bears the greater risk rather than gaining the greater advantage.